Walking into the produce section of any supermarket, it's
hard to believe that it's the end of winter. Thanks to the development of
international trade, a global food distribution system and modern storage
technologies, we are no longer restricted by local growing seasons and soil
conditions. Supermarkets offer us a variety of over 30,000 products from around
the world, many of which were unheard of a half a century ago. Such modern
dietary mainstays as New Zealand kiwis, Jamaican plantains and Chinese pummelos
were unknown to our grandparents.

This is mainly because until the second half of the 20th
Century, most people were only a step or two away from the food that they ate.
Today, an enormous food system stands between farmers and consumers. This
system is controlled by a handful of giant multinational corporations for whom
food is a commodity and the bottom line is profit. In Canada, fewer than a half
dozen companies control our retail food industry.

On the surface, this commodification of our food has
numerous benefits and provides us with a planetary garden of culinary delights
at ever decreasing prices. Locally, our agricultural production has moved from
being a community driven initiative to an industry that is controlled by
marketing boards and government regulations. This has translated into lower
consumer food prices, better control over food production and greater food
safety. In 1952, Canadians paid 21.6 percent of their incomes for food. By
2000, that figure had dropped to less than 9 percent.

Unfortunately these benefits have come at an enormous cost.
Environmental degradation, consumer manipulation, producer exploitation and
declining food quality are all side effects of our contemporary food system.
More importantly, consumers have lost control of the very system that
supposedly fulfills our needs. The modern food system consists of an
inter-locking web of food producers (once known as farmers), processors,
distributors and retail stores. Instead of simply going out in the back garden
and picking a tomato for dinner, today the tomato that ends up on your supper
plate may have traveled thousands of miles by truck, then delivered to a
distribution centre, shipped by yet another vehicle to your local supermarket, and
then given a ride home in the back of the family van. Food analyst and author
Brewster Kneen refers to this process as distancing.

Every act of distancing adds to the cost of food, while
actually diminishing its nutritional value. For example, milk is made into
cheese; cheese is then processed into a cheese product. Whole grains are
stripped of their most important nutrients and processed into white flour and
then made into pasta. Together the processed cheese and pasta are combined in a
ready-to-eat macaroni and cheese dinner. The result is something that doesnŐt
remotely resemble the original whole foods.

Distancing also places a heavy toll on the environment. Food
that is transported across huge geographical distances burns a whole lot of
fossil fuel in the process. A report done by the Leopold Center for Sustainable
Agriculture in Iowa compared the various "food miles" or the
distances that food travels from where it is grown to where it is purchased and
consumed. The differences were staggering. For example, locally grown apples
travel an average of 61 miles (or slightly less than 100 km.) from tree to
market. Imported apples travel a whopping 1,726 miles (or 2,778 km). When the
list of the 16 most common foods was totaled, locally grown produce traveled
716 miles (1152 km), whereas the imported group traveled 25,301 miles (40,718
km), or more than the circumference of the Earth.

While it's hard to pass up fresh strawberries in the middle
of winter, we need to become more aware of the hidden costs associated with
having whatever we want, whenever we want it. Get into the habit of reading
food labels. Talk to your grocery store manager about buying locally grown
(and/or organic) produce whenever possible. During the winter months, frozen
fruits and vegetables (grown in Canada) offer a reasonably priced and
nutritious alternative to imported fresh foods. Once the warm weather returns,
shop at local farmersŐ markets or pick-your-own farms. If you really want to
get ambitious, pick up seed catalogue and plant your garden when spring
arrives.